Pocket Storm

The Pocket Storm
is an environmental audio player which streams
an hour-long, ever-changing thunderstorm — just for you.

It starts with a calm summer night. Soon you’ll hear thunder in the
distance, then wind and a spatter of rain. After half an hour you’ll
be in the thick of the storm. By the end of the hour it will have
faded into the night again. Then the cycle begins again.

The Pocket Storm is not like other environmental
audio apps. Every thunderstorm is different! Wind, rain, thunder —
even chirping crickets — every sound is chosen from a library, with
subtle variations of pitch and timing.
The Pocket Storm weaves these elements into
a tapestry of sound which will never repeat.

Pocket Storm
is available now
for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.
Download it for the new Apple TV as well!

A storm that approaches, surrounds you, and then drifts away.

Elegant, uncluttered interface.

Set the storm’s duration anywhere from a sixty-minute monster down
to a five-minute squall...

...or hold the skies in place, and listen to the same weather for as
long as you want.

Listen with headphones...

...or send audio to an AppleTV or other AirPlay device on your
wireless network.

...or run it directly on your new AppleTV! Available on the tvOS
App Store.

Runs as a background audio app.

...(No Internet connection required!)

Use the Pocket Storm for white noise, tuning out
distractions; for relaxation, meditation, or going to sleep. Tune your
desert to rain, or your city street to chirping crickets.

Sample Audio

These audio files were captured directly from
Pocket Storm.

Remember that these are only examples! Every time you launch
Pocket Storm, a new audio environment is generated.
The tone of your storm — or calm — may be quite different.

Calm Interlude

The Leading Edge

Height of the Storm

Storm Aftermath

How It Works

The Pocket Storm is built on
Boodler technology.
Boodler is an open-source soundscape project which I invented
years ago. Boodler is designed for any kind of complex audio environment
— weather, traffic, alien worlds —
but I’ve never developed it as it really deserves.
The Pocket Storm is my first attempt to bring
Boodler to a consumer audience.

Thanks to
Owen Williams
for creating the first Boodler thunderstorm
soundscape, more than a decade ago.

The Pocket Storm could not exist without
Freesound.org, a collaborative
database of Creative Commons sound. All the sounds in the app are sampled
from Freesound contributions. (Creative Commons Attribution, Sampling Plus,
and Zero licenses.)
For a list of sounds and attributions,
please see this page.

A percentage of the App Store revenue from Pocket Storm will be
donated to the Freesound project.

(What percentage? I’m currently thinking ten percent. That’s
subject to change as circumstances warrant. I’m
zarf
on the Freesound site, by the way.)